The familiar strangers of Dhaka metro

Every morning, I travel with hundreds of people. By the time I reach Mirpur, almost every one of them has disappeared from my life.

I usually reach Motijheel Metro Station at 9:31. My office starts at 10, which leaves me 29 minutes to catch the train, get off at Mirpur and walk the rest of the way. It is a small calculation I repeat almost every morning, almost without thinking.

The metro doors open and people step out in a practiced rhythm. Some already have their office IDs hanging from their necks. Some keep looking at their phones as they walk. At the same time, another crowd rushes in. The faster you enter, the better your chances of finding a seat.

I usually stand with my back against the pole in the middle of the coach. From there, I watch people. Not in a suspicious way. It is probably the anthropologist in me. I notice small things and start wondering about the lives behind them.

One morning, a young man entered the station lift carrying a bouquet. He held it carefully, away from the crowd, as if the flowers were more fragile than everything else around him. I immediately started making guesses. Was he going to apologise to someone? Was it a birthday? A first date? Perhaps he had rehearsed a sentence all morning and was still deciding how to say it.

He got off before I did.

I still sometimes wonder whether the flowers reached the person they were meant for.

On another day, an elderly woman held a bag filled with medical reports. She kept it close to her body throughout the journey. She did not open the reports or speak to anyone. I wondered whether she had already received the results or was still waiting to hear them. I tried to read her face, although I knew it could tell me nothing for certain.

Then there are the smaller scenes.

A man sleeps through several stations, his head dropping forward each time the train slows. Someone replies to office emails before the workday has officially begun. A couple tries to calm a crying baby. A young photographer checks the same image repeatedly on a camera screen. A girl in a bright saree gets off at Dhaka University Station and disappears into the crowd.

For a few minutes, these people become part of my morning.

Then the doors open, and they are gone.

Yet most of us never exchange a word.

I may remember someone's face for the rest of the day without ever knowing their name. I may imagine where they are going, who is waiting for them or what kind of day they are about to have. But imagination is where the relationship ends.

Sometimes I read a book while standing in the metro. I read because I enjoy it, but there is another thought I rarely admit. A small part of me hopes someone will notice and ask, “What are you reading?”

I do not expect a long conversation. Maybe just one question, followed by a short answer before one of us gets off. Perhaps we would exchange a few words about the book, smile awkwardly and then return to our own worlds.

But no one has asked so far.

Dhaka puts us beside countless people every day, yet gives us very little time to enter one another's lives. We become familiar strangers. We recognise types of people rather than people themselves: the student, the office worker, the mother with a child, the patient carrying medical reports, the man with flowers.

Sometimes I wonder how many people I have passed in this city whose lives I might have known if circumstances had been slightly different.

Perhaps the man with the bouquet and I might have become friends. Perhaps the elderly woman carrying the medical reports has a story that would stay with me for years. Perhaps the girl in the bright saree was going somewhere important, nervous about what awaited her. Perhaps the tired man sleeping through the stations had spent the previous night awake for reasons I could never imagine.

I will probably never know.

Perhaps this is why Franz Kafka still feels surprisingly relevant.

Most people remember The Metamorphosis because Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning and finds himself transformed into a giant insect. But the transformation is not the only disturbing part of the story. Gregor is already disconnected from the world around him. His life is built around work, responsibility and obligation. Even after waking up in a completely changed body, his first concern is that he might be late for work.

What stays with me is not simply that Gregor becomes something strange. It is how easily he becomes invisible to the people around him.

Standing inside the metro, I sometimes think about that invisibility. Not because the passengers resemble Gregor, but because city life can quietly turn people into background figures.

We notice each other, but only briefly.

We see a face, a pair of tired eyes, a bouquet, a medical report, a schoolbag or a book. We register the object and perhaps construct a story around the person carrying it. Then the train reaches the next station and the person disappears.

The strange thing is that we are all doing the same to one another.

I am watching people, but somewhere in another coach, someone may be watching me. Perhaps someone has noticed the book in my hand. Perhaps they have wondered why I always stand in the same place. Perhaps someone has created a small story about me without ever knowing whether it is true.

We are strangers to one another, but we are also characters in one another's brief, unfinished stories.

Still, I do not think the metro is only a lonely place.

There are small interruptions.

Someone gives up a seat for an elderly passenger. A stranger reaches out to steady a child who almost falls when the metro starts moving. Someone waits near the exit because they are going home together. A passenger helps another person find the right station. A child refuses to look at a phone and spends the whole journey staring through the window.

These moments break the pattern.

For a few seconds, one person stops being part of the crowd and becomes visible to another.

Perhaps that is what I find most interesting about travelling through Dhaka. The city constantly creates these brief encounters between people who may never meet again. Most of them amount to nothing. Some last only a few seconds. Yet they leave small impressions behind.

These are tiny glimpses into lives that remain largely inaccessible to me.

And perhaps that is enough.

Tomorrow, I will probably reach Motijheel at 9:31 again. I will stand in the same part of the coach and watch another group of strangers enter. There may be another bouquet. Another medical report. Another tired face. Perhaps someone else will be reading a book.

For twenty-five minutes, our lives will move in the same direction.

I will notice some of them. I will imagine the stories of others. I will perhaps remember a few faces after they leave.

Then the doors will open at Mirpur.

They will step into their lives, and I will step into mine.

For a short time, we will have travelled together.

But we will never really have met.